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Herbs & Cultures

Kallawaya healing knowledge →

Wira wira for a cough

Tea of the silver-grey herb wira wira, or boiled in milk: a Kallawaya remedy for coughs and bronchitis.

Traditional use

Time
15 minutes
Makes
1 cup
Wira wira

Wira wira is a small, silver-grey herb from the Andes that smells of chamomile and resin. The Kallawaya healers of Bolivia, whom the French researcher Louis Girault followed for years, use it for coughs, bronchitis and other lung complaints: as a tea, or simmered gently in milk.

Ingredients

  • 1 tsp dried wira wira (in South American shops also as marcela or macela)
  • 250 ml boiling water or warm milk
  • Honey to taste

Step by step

  1. Pour the boiling water over the herb, cover and steep for 10 minutes; or simmer the herb very gently in the milk for 5 minutes.
  2. Strain.
  3. Drink warm, with a little honey, two or three times a day.

Tips

  • In Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil the same plant is called marcela, and there too it is a household remedy.

Registry

Herbs in this recipe

Read more about effects and safety on each herb’s page.

  • Caution

    South America · Herb · № 1005

    Wira wira

    Achyrocline satureioides (en verwante wollige composieten, o.a. Culcitium canescens)

    A woolly, bitter-aromatic plant up to a metre tall with yellow flower heads. Contains flavonoids such as quercetin and luteolin; in the laboratory the extract acts against some viruses, but research in people is lacking.

    Kallawaya healing knowledge

Cultures and traditions

Where the herbs come from

The herbs in this recipe also appear in these traditions.